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With the notable exception of a few Romans, these people are Jews. And in the story, they come off rather badly.

The Romans come off far worse than the Jews, and there are far more noble Jews than there are Romans in the film

Because of that peculiarity, the crucifixion is not just a story; it is a story with its own story -- a history of centuries of relentless, and at times savage, persecution of Jews in Christian lands.

Not in America.

Which is what makes Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" such a singular act of interreligious aggression. He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching and, using every possible technique of cinematic exaggeration, gives us the pre-Vatican II story of the villainous Jews.

Krauthammer's incomprehending screed, easily his worst ever, is starting to look like an act of interreligious aggression.
Of course their were villainous, stiff-necked, rebellious Jews in the Gospels and the New Testament. Why would it be any different than the Old Testament?
Is the Old Testament also an anti-Semitic document?

And Gibson's personal interpretation is spectacularly vicious. Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus's scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. ....

The opening scriptural reference is to Isaiah 53, which along with Chapter 52 prophesies the scourging and mutilation of Christ far more than do the Gospels.

In none of the Gospels does the high priest Caiaphas stand there with his cruel, impassive fellow priests witnessing the scourging. In Gibson's movie they do. When it comes to the Jews, Gibson deviates from the Gospels -- glorying in his artistic vision -- time and again. He bends, he stretches, he makes stuff up. And these deviations point overwhelmingly in a single direction -- to the villainy and culpability of the Jews

And with the Romans.

Satan appears four times. Not one of these appearances occurs in the four Gospels. They are pure invention. Twice, this sinister, hooded, androgynous embodiment of evil is found . . . where? Moving among the crowd of Jews.

Satan was attempting to see to it that the King of the Jews was murdered.

Perhaps this should not be surprising, coming from a filmmaker whose public pronouncements on the Holocaust are as chillingly ambiguous and carefully calibrated as that of any sophisticated Holocaust denier

In the close-ups of the nails being driven into Jesus' hands, it is Mel Gibson's own hands that do the deed.
Not a Jew's hands. Not a Roman's hands. Mel Gibson's own hands.
The guilt is on all of us. This was Gibson's way of showing what Paul taught: that we are all accountable for the Crucifixion.
We all put Christ on the Cross.

Charge one as to departing from the gospels to make Jews look worse than the gospel story:

In none of the Gospels does the high priest Caiaphas stand there with his cruel, impassive fellow priests witnessing the scourging.

Charge two is that the satan wraiths merge with the Jewish "mob" (which wraiths are also apparently not in the gospels). Whether the overall gestalt of the message is that the Jewish mob were temporarily taken over by Satan, or that they were the functional equivalent of Satan, I don't know. I have not seen the film.

So the issue is, is what is Mel's defense to artistic license not in the gospels, that make the Jewish mob, and Jewish authorities, look worse than the gospels suggest?

I agree that Kraut's overall thrust is over the top. The gospels are what they are. For those of us who are non-believers, it is all understandable. The Romans and the Jewish authorities offed folks that they perceived threatened their authority all the time. The place did not have the American Supreme Court to issue writs of habeas corpus. But to the extent Mel departs from the gospels, to make the Jews look worse to believers than the gospels "teach," he is fair game for criticism.

What say you?